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Feature Articles - The Life of Evelina Haverfield - England - and Service on the Eastern Front

In January,
rumours kept circulating that the Scottish Women would be interned
because their work in Krushevatz was running out. In 1916, that could
mean years of imprisonment.

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Because the women felt that there must be a
great need for medical care among the Serbs further south, three of them
planned to avoid internment and stay on in Serbia until the Allies
returned and liberated the country. They included one doctor, one
support staff, and Evelina.

They rented a room in a private home where
they thought they could live and work without being detected by the
enemy. They planned to take medicines, medical supplies, and some staple
foods, when the time came for the other women to leave. After that, they
hoped to live and work underground with the aid of Serbian friends.

But
without warning, on February 11, all the Scottish Women were summoned at
ten o'clock at night, and ordered to leave immediately with only what
they could carry. They were put on a train and taken to Belgrade, then
sent on to Vienna, where their release was arranged by the American
Ambassador.

When she reached her home in North Devon, Evelina took a much-needed
rest after the strenuous ten months she had spent in Serbia. She was
very thin, and her appearance haggard from the poor diet, overwork, lack
of enough sleep, and some illness.

When she recovered her normal energy,
she responded to requests for interviews from the press, and speaking
engagements on behalf of Serbian relief. When Dr. Inglis invited her to
participate in another S.W.H. overseas operation in support of the Serbs, she
immediately agreed to go.

Dr. Inglis had been asked by the Serbian Government for S.W.H. units to
support two Serbian regiments who were fighting on the eastern front
with the Russian and Romanian armies. She recruited about 75 women, all
of whom had previous overseas experience with the S.W.H., to form two
hospital units and a transport section.

This new addition consisted of
ambulances, lorries, kitchen cars, and touring cars; eighteen vehicles
in all, to be serviced and driven by women. She asked Evelina to head
this new section. The ambulances were American Fords, and the heavy-duty
lorries were British built.

In 1916, all types of automobiles were
sometimes hard to start; they had to be cranked by hand to start them,
and tyres were subject to frequent blowouts. So drivers had to be able to
do some basic maintenance on their own vehicles. In addition, there were
no automotive service stations in rural areas of Romania, where the
fighting was raging, so the drivers had to be practical and resourceful.
They had to carry with them most of the automotive supplies they would need.

At the end of August the contingent left by ship for the northern
Russian port of Archangel, and from there they travelled by train
through Russia to the battle area in the Romanian province of Dobrudja.

This was the most easterly part of Romania, an area bordered on the
south by Bulgaria, on the east by the Black Sea, and on the north and
west by the Danube River. The area was agricultural and was dotted with
a few towns and some smaller villages. These were connected by dirt
roads suitable for use by farm animals.

During the wet autumn season
these roads became so muddy that the S.W.H. vehicles sometimes got
mired, and Evelina would have to get the help of enough soldiers to push
the vehicle out of the mud, or farm animals to pull it back on to firm
ground.

The southern border of the Dobrudja was defended by a combination of
Romanian, Russian, and Serbian divisions. The opposing Bulgarian Army
was strengthened by Austro-German technical troops, and was led by a
senior German staff officer. This combination soon proved to be superior
to the Romanian defences.

The Allied troops were outclassed by their
better trained and better equipped adversaries, and in the military
disaster which resulted in the southern Dobrudja, the Serbian divisions
found themselves completely unsupported by their allies. The Serbs
suffered such heavy losses of killed and wounded that they had to be
retired from action and moved back into Russian territory to recover.